Program Participation and Policy Challenges

Starting with the early development of the “disappearing middle” hypothesis in the 1980s, farm policy has been integral to the question of how to maintain the viability of midscale agriculture. Marty Strange, a renowned advocate for family farms and rural communities, called the question of what to do with medium-sized farms the policy issue of the time. Most policy efforts in the 1980s focused on commodity support, but raising commodity prices for all producers does not protect midsized farms. Some experts at that time believed that targeted income supplements for medium-sized farms were the answer. This solution was never enacted.

Strange presciently wrote that the most important issue in addressing the problems of midsized farms is a “dynamic of fair competition, economic opportunity, growth and expansion, and the exercise of economic power.” This dynamic has (perhaps unwittingly) guided the Agriculture of the Middle (AOTM) Initiative and the enterprises presented here. It is manifest in the policies and programs that these supply chains utilize and in the policy changes adopted by federal, state, local and private interests in service of a more viable midsized agricultural sector in the U.S.

Current funding support provided by United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) through the Multistate project, NC-1198, “Renewing an Agriculture of the Middle: Value Chain Design, Policy Approaches, and Environmental and Social Impacts” (2012 -2017).